First of all, I'd like to apologise to my players for dropping out last night. It wasn't the right thing to do, and I understand that, and it would have been better to talk to you all and explain things, I recognise that fact. But the truth of the matter is that I saw red, and I knew that if I had said anything, it would have been a screaming rant, and that wouldn't have helped anyone.
So I just quit.
No, I haven't quit the game, I have a huge storyline that I want to continue, but last night was too much, after a pretty rough weekend.
I won't go into all of the personal reasons for my poor state of mind, since it's not relevant. What is relevant is what happened last night that pushed me over the edge.
Simply put, it's two things. Firstly, I do not have much patience for players deciding not to act. It is not my problem, as GM, if you have three different directions you can go in and you can't choose between them. I don't want to railroad the plot. Any of the three would have eventually led to the right place, that's built into the plot already. "Optimum path" doesn't exist. There is no walkthrough. This is not a computer RPG, this is a game where the GM reacts to your decisions. If you go off track, I will adapt. The only "wrong" thing to do is to do nothing. But I'm prepared for that, too. But I can't say what's happening if I don't know what the PC's are doing (or not doing, as the case may be).
For the record, going to the US Naval Base is a good move. It might not be the best one, depending on your preferences and desire to get to the bottom of things, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Please note, I'm only saying this now, after the decision was made. I will not say so in advance. It is up to the players to decide what to do and where to go. Definitely not me.
The second thing is to do with relevance. If I do not provide a piece of information, it is safe to assume that I have not thought of what it is. So, I know that the commander of the Naval Base is Captain Foster. I do not know what rank someone at the guardpost is likely to have. Nor do I care to take the time to find out, because it's not relevant to the story. Further, I doubt many civilians can recognise rank insignia for their own country's armed forces. So if I'd said "Two red stripes in a curved "V" shape on the left upper arm", I'd only tell you it was a PO 2nd Class with less than 12 years of service if your character has a military background or appropriate skills.
It wasn't relevant, as far as I could tell, since it was a walk-in character, not plot relevant, and I had a LOT of things on my mind at the time. Like writing up the introduction to Captain Foster.
I will note that the two things above actually point to something. If I'm trying to move the plot forward, being distracted by irrelevant details will only slow things down, which will only make the plot move slower, which will only cause even more delays in player decisions, because the information the players have isn't important to moving the plot forward.
Right now, this may all seem very mysterious to the players, but that's okay, because it's meant to be. I am prepared to say that this is actually part of the overarching plotline. This is not a side-quest, not a mini-adventure. This is the full-on main plotline. The characters don't know it yet, because I've been careful about what information they have. This part is all about gathering that information, and all will become clear, sooner or later.
Now, on to some thoughts, since I hate these posts to be pure ranting on my part.
Thoughts about playing online through a text-based medium, really. I'm still puzzling through how this all works. Learning to adapt my style of GMing to the environment. If I'm round a table with some friends, it's easy for them to tell from my expression and mannerisms when something is a distraction. Online, all the players have to go on are my words. I will always just lay out plot elements in terms of what players know, see, hear. I'm not a fan of explaining my reasoning until after the fact, or commenting on player decisions until the action is resolved.
I've reached the conclusion that it's impossible to deal with everything. With five or six players, all asking questions, some of those questions will be missed or forgotten. It happens in tabletop games. Just because I have a text interface doesn't suddenly make my memory perfect, or force me to notice something. The ability to PM me with questions does two things - it prevents me from reading posts in the main window, and it prevents me from writing descriptions. I hand out player-specific information via PM's, but I despise getting PM's that could be directed to me in the main window.
Why? Because it's another window I have to have open - I've already explained the 11+ windows I need to have up just to play this game, in a previous post - and it actively prevents me from paying the other players any attention. Any. It's not something I can sit to one side and deal with at the same time, because it's something that is demanding my attention there and then.
So, anyone planning to play an online game using a game system that isn't designed for it, and without custom software designed to smooth the running of the game, don't be afraid to ignore PM's from your players. If it is something that actually matters to the game, it can be said in OOC chat. Save PM's for secret information. Don't ever discuss game rules or characters once the game has begun. You are the GM. You adjudicate the rules. Once the game starts, your word is law. You may get it wrong - if you do, make a note, and don't get it wrong next time. But the important thing is to keep things moving.
Showing posts with label Mutants and Masterminds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mutants and Masterminds. Show all posts
Monday, 8 February 2010
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Time passes...
Well, it's been an age since I've posted anything here, but I didn't want anyone to think that I'd forgotten this place. Life has been a bit busy, recently, and a change at work means that I no longer get the opportunity to write these blogposts in the office, which is what's really put the brakes on doing so.
For those interested, I'm still running my weekly games, and this is just a brief update about where I am with them.
Mutants & Masterminds
This game is on Christmas hiatus right now, resuming in the New Year, having basically finished the last plotline. Go players! Especially since I managed to sneak in the old "reverse morality fight yourselves" trope. Which was, frankly, awesome, especially since it was the single largest combat I've run so far, and it went a lot more smoothly than I anticipated. Here's a hint to any budding online GMs out there - make the players do as much of the work as you can! That saves you time all the way down the line, allowing you to focus in rule adjudication and description. I'm still working on whether I should ask my players to write the descriptions of when they get hit in combat, as well the effect of their own strikes. I'd love it if they're willing, because it will allow them even more creative input into events, and simultaneously free me up to concentrate on keeping the game running smoothly, which could well chop combat time to about 2/3rds of the current length (which is still far too long for my liking).
For anyone interested (and assuming at least a basic knowledge of the M&M damage system), when a player hits an NPC in combat, I will write the outcome in a very simple format, straight into the OOC chatbox. These range from "Miss" to "Hit, no effect" through "Hit, Bruised", "Hit, Stunned", "Hit, Stunned, KB 25 feet" all the way up to "Hit, Unconscious, KB 1000 feet, hit a wall, wall does Bruise". It is then up to the player to describe the action in the IC chatbox, as well as the effect. This works brilliantly, because it means that as soon as I've said that in the OOC chatbox, I can call for the next character.
The problem I've experienced, though, is when I get multiple NPCs acting one after the other. Since I've retained control of the descriptive text for NPC actions, it can tie me up for several minutes while I detail it. If I can pass that across to the players, in a similar format (I'm thinking, say, "Speedbreak punches Liberty Belle. Hit, Stunned, Staggered, KB 10 feet" or "Death Knell uses mace on Scrub, Hit, Bruised") and leave it up to the players to write the descritpions for me, that could save me an inordinate amount of time.
I know that some of my players read this blog, so let me know what you think.
Dungeons & Dragons
My D&D game reached a natural pause point just before Christmas, so we paused. And entered into a huge debate about whether we like 4E enough to carry it on. The quick answer is "No". The long answer is as follows: D&D 4E is an incredibly sophisticated miniatures combat system, well balanced, very MMO-esque... and not flexible enough. I do not dislike it. I just don't like it as the premier fantasy RPG on the market. So, rather than playing D&D 4E, my Wednesday night gaming group is shifting to D20 Modern and giving that a go. I'll let you know how it works out for us.
City of Heroes
Obviously, as anyone who knows me even a little bit will be able to atest, I roleplay in City of Heroes. A lot. I still am. I've been very consciously avoiding major plotlines recently (which actually caused some friction in-game recently, since my character ended up refusing to help someone for possibly spurious reasons), but still going along regularly and getting involed with in-depth character interaction. There's a lot going on, as usual.
That's pretty much all there is to say for now. More soon, hopefully!
For those interested, I'm still running my weekly games, and this is just a brief update about where I am with them.
Mutants & Masterminds
This game is on Christmas hiatus right now, resuming in the New Year, having basically finished the last plotline. Go players! Especially since I managed to sneak in the old "reverse morality fight yourselves" trope. Which was, frankly, awesome, especially since it was the single largest combat I've run so far, and it went a lot more smoothly than I anticipated. Here's a hint to any budding online GMs out there - make the players do as much of the work as you can! That saves you time all the way down the line, allowing you to focus in rule adjudication and description. I'm still working on whether I should ask my players to write the descriptions of when they get hit in combat, as well the effect of their own strikes. I'd love it if they're willing, because it will allow them even more creative input into events, and simultaneously free me up to concentrate on keeping the game running smoothly, which could well chop combat time to about 2/3rds of the current length (which is still far too long for my liking).
For anyone interested (and assuming at least a basic knowledge of the M&M damage system), when a player hits an NPC in combat, I will write the outcome in a very simple format, straight into the OOC chatbox. These range from "Miss" to "Hit, no effect" through "Hit, Bruised", "Hit, Stunned", "Hit, Stunned, KB 25 feet" all the way up to "Hit, Unconscious, KB 1000 feet, hit a wall, wall does Bruise". It is then up to the player to describe the action in the IC chatbox, as well as the effect. This works brilliantly, because it means that as soon as I've said that in the OOC chatbox, I can call for the next character.
The problem I've experienced, though, is when I get multiple NPCs acting one after the other. Since I've retained control of the descriptive text for NPC actions, it can tie me up for several minutes while I detail it. If I can pass that across to the players, in a similar format (I'm thinking, say, "Speedbreak punches Liberty Belle. Hit, Stunned, Staggered, KB 10 feet" or "Death Knell uses mace on Scrub, Hit, Bruised") and leave it up to the players to write the descritpions for me, that could save me an inordinate amount of time.
I know that some of my players read this blog, so let me know what you think.
Dungeons & Dragons
My D&D game reached a natural pause point just before Christmas, so we paused. And entered into a huge debate about whether we like 4E enough to carry it on. The quick answer is "No". The long answer is as follows: D&D 4E is an incredibly sophisticated miniatures combat system, well balanced, very MMO-esque... and not flexible enough. I do not dislike it. I just don't like it as the premier fantasy RPG on the market. So, rather than playing D&D 4E, my Wednesday night gaming group is shifting to D20 Modern and giving that a go. I'll let you know how it works out for us.
City of Heroes
Obviously, as anyone who knows me even a little bit will be able to atest, I roleplay in City of Heroes. A lot. I still am. I've been very consciously avoiding major plotlines recently (which actually caused some friction in-game recently, since my character ended up refusing to help someone for possibly spurious reasons), but still going along regularly and getting involed with in-depth character interaction. There's a lot going on, as usual.
That's pretty much all there is to say for now. More soon, hopefully!
Monday, 2 November 2009
Weekly Games: M&M
Sorry I've been away for so long, dear readers - new job combined with lots of holiday very rapidly has left me in a position where I've pretty much always found something more important to do thant write in this blog.
Plus, my memory being what it is, I'm undoubtedly going to forget a load of stuff that's been going on in my weekly games. I also have a post that I'm writing about a game I took part in a couple of months ago, now.
For the purposes of this post, though, I'm not going to focus on the events of the game session that happened, but rather on the implications of it.
I've previously described the party that is undertaking this game, at least in general terms, but what hasn't been covered in detail is my intent for the campaign. The most interesting thing to note from this perspective is that only a couple of the characters - Liberty Belle and Procyon - strictly fall within the specific genre I'm going for. The game is probably best described to comic geeks as "Bronze Age", but I'm not massively up on my terminology, so I might have that a little wrong. What I'm aiming for is slightly over-the-top villainy (the bad guys are bad, monologue lots, and have dastardly plans for taking over the world!), coupled with a more realistic appreciation of the lives of the heroes, and the things that matter to them. Ultimately, the direction I'm trying to guide things is that the interactions between the PCs, their lives and the things that matter to them are the important things. What the villains are up to is entirely secondary to that (though in a given session it might not seem that way).
Anyway, Liberty Belle and Procyon are Silver Age-esque "heroes are heroic!" characters, but with sufficient character flaws and complications to give them some traction. The rest of the party - and by no means do I consider this to be a bad thing - are more gritty and realistic.
This led to an interesting question raised in our last session. To briefly explain the situation - the heroes are currently on "Anti-Earth" - sort of the dark mirror to their own world, where the good guys are bad, and the bad guys are good - or dead.
The party quite swiftly fell into two camps regarding their responsibilities to the world in which they found themselves: Group A want to liberate the people, free the oppressed and generally be all-round good-guys. Group B want to do what they came here to do and get home.
Personally, I'm in Group B, but as the GM, and given that I want the players to make this sort of decision for themselves, I don't have any say in it. Nor do I want to influence the decision, because this is exactly the sort of theme I'm trying to explore in this campaign. Yes, hello players, you're all guinea pigs in the GM's social experiment.
A little bit of background for anyone not familiar with the Freedom City M&M setting. Anti-Earth is, as previously stated, the dark mirror to the universe of Freedom. For anyone familiar with City of Heroes, you won't go far wrong if you imagine Praetorian Earth as represented in the game so far (and definitely ignoring the dystopia that it will be revealed as in Going Rogue). The world is ruled by a cruel group of villainous super-powered beings called the Tyranny Syndicate, and the entire world is riddled with corruption, graft, cruelty, and all the vices of the modern world, expanded into the mainstream. It is not this way because some event made it different from the world of Freedom - it is like that because that's the way the world is.
Now, the standard superhero trope of "fight your doppelgangers" has already popped up in reduced form, and the heroes have already met Anti-Earth's sole, lonely hero, Mind Master (who, on their own world, is the villainous Mastermind). They are here to perform a rescue, arrived unplanned, with reduced resources... and the upstanding true-blue heroes among them are determined to "save the world", while the more down-to-Earth (I want to say pessimistic, but that's not really true) members of the group want to just do the rescue and make their way home.
This, then, raises the true point of this post: In a superheroic setting, are there any circumstances in which it is "reasonable" for a hero to be less than completely heroic?
This calls to the fundamental nature of a "hero", I suppose. To me, a hero is someone who, for whatever reason, helps to improve the lives of others without regard for personal gain or safety, and without regard for whom they are helping. I make that distinction quite purposefully, because it's possible for someone to help a specific person without regard for personal gain or safety, and not be heroic at all.
Now, in comics, the true, dyed in the wool heroes are larger than life personalities, clad in spandex, going around rescuing cats from trees, helping old ladies with their shopping and foiling bank robberies. The interesting stuff all tends to happen when a) their personal life gets involved or b) a particularly dastardly villain proves more than they can handle. But this particular situation is neither of those. It's a question of whether they truly are heroes, and what does being a hero mean to them.
Of course, I'm not so megalomaniacal that I believe that my definition of a hero is the true one, but I've not really seen anything that makes me want to change it. Nor am I going to enforce my beliefs onto my players - they have their characters, and they can play them however they want to, as far as I'm concerned.
For this situation, I'm only interested in the spectrum of heroism, rather than the full range of human responses. So, given that a hero's natural reaction to "bad things" is going to be "fix bad things", the range of possible actions is limited. As I see it, though, in the situation as presented, we have the two ends of the spectrum already - one the one hand there's "help those we came to help, and then get home", and on the other is "help everyone".
In a world not your own, where you are strangers, possibly feared, certainly hated by the powers that be, where does each hero stand? And why?
As I see it, a hero should want to help everyone. But in this circumstance, is it really feasible for their actions to match their desires? I don't actually think so. It's not their world, they have responsibilities to discharge in the universe they belong to, and the sheer scale of the problem on Anti-Earth is specifically tailored to be beyond them. They cannot just leap in and expect to win. And if they try, then they are running the risk of failing their own friends and families back home. But that should never stop the desire to help everyone. To have the potential to be larger than life.
Some may reach this conclusion quickly, for various reasons - perhaps they are smart enough to recognise that to win, they need more time to prepare, to gain every advantage they can. It's not something that can be won with fisticuffs - it needs social engineering on a grand scale, and is vastly beyond the intended scope of the current adventure. Which doesn't mean I would be upset if the players got proactive and decided to do something about it in the future.
In conclusion: A hero is still a hero even when they step away from a fight they can't win. Sometimes they are a hero because they step away from a fight. It is not actions that define a hero, but intent. And the intent should be an unthinking reaction to the welfare of others, and working to improve it. A hero is not a hero because they reasoned that it was the right thing to do, or because they feel responsible for others, or because they are looking to learn something about themselves. A hero is a hero because it is a fundamental part of who they are, which makes them do things to better the lives of others, and they don't think about it. They just do it. Not always the way they want, not always when they want, but they never turn their face away and give in.
Some people will say that a hero is someone who risks themselves to help others, but I don't see that. In the broader context of superheroics, characters like Superman are rarely in danger (Kryptonite notwithstanding), but I wouldn't dispute that he is a hero. One of my own roleplaying characters, Shadowe, in the City of Heroes MMO, is effectively immortal and unkillable, yet I believe that he is a hero, despite not really being in any true danger, no matter what he does. Spider-man is mortal, and became a hero out of guilt, and the awakening knowledge that "with great power comes great responsibility". Peter Parker could have taken that trite little phrase to mean that he has a responsibility to punish the guilty, as a way to assuage his own guilt. But instead he took the more difficult, and vastly more heroic, path to the real responsibility that heroes have - to help others. Because it is not about the dangers that heroes face. It never was, and never should be. It is about the ideals that they hold dear, and the constant striving to make the world a better place. Or, as Shadowe has been known to put it: "Making the world a nicer place, for one person at a time."
Plus, my memory being what it is, I'm undoubtedly going to forget a load of stuff that's been going on in my weekly games. I also have a post that I'm writing about a game I took part in a couple of months ago, now.
For the purposes of this post, though, I'm not going to focus on the events of the game session that happened, but rather on the implications of it.
I've previously described the party that is undertaking this game, at least in general terms, but what hasn't been covered in detail is my intent for the campaign. The most interesting thing to note from this perspective is that only a couple of the characters - Liberty Belle and Procyon - strictly fall within the specific genre I'm going for. The game is probably best described to comic geeks as "Bronze Age", but I'm not massively up on my terminology, so I might have that a little wrong. What I'm aiming for is slightly over-the-top villainy (the bad guys are bad, monologue lots, and have dastardly plans for taking over the world!), coupled with a more realistic appreciation of the lives of the heroes, and the things that matter to them. Ultimately, the direction I'm trying to guide things is that the interactions between the PCs, their lives and the things that matter to them are the important things. What the villains are up to is entirely secondary to that (though in a given session it might not seem that way).
Anyway, Liberty Belle and Procyon are Silver Age-esque "heroes are heroic!" characters, but with sufficient character flaws and complications to give them some traction. The rest of the party - and by no means do I consider this to be a bad thing - are more gritty and realistic.
This led to an interesting question raised in our last session. To briefly explain the situation - the heroes are currently on "Anti-Earth" - sort of the dark mirror to their own world, where the good guys are bad, and the bad guys are good - or dead.
The party quite swiftly fell into two camps regarding their responsibilities to the world in which they found themselves: Group A want to liberate the people, free the oppressed and generally be all-round good-guys. Group B want to do what they came here to do and get home.
Personally, I'm in Group B, but as the GM, and given that I want the players to make this sort of decision for themselves, I don't have any say in it. Nor do I want to influence the decision, because this is exactly the sort of theme I'm trying to explore in this campaign. Yes, hello players, you're all guinea pigs in the GM's social experiment.
A little bit of background for anyone not familiar with the Freedom City M&M setting. Anti-Earth is, as previously stated, the dark mirror to the universe of Freedom. For anyone familiar with City of Heroes, you won't go far wrong if you imagine Praetorian Earth as represented in the game so far (and definitely ignoring the dystopia that it will be revealed as in Going Rogue). The world is ruled by a cruel group of villainous super-powered beings called the Tyranny Syndicate, and the entire world is riddled with corruption, graft, cruelty, and all the vices of the modern world, expanded into the mainstream. It is not this way because some event made it different from the world of Freedom - it is like that because that's the way the world is.
Now, the standard superhero trope of "fight your doppelgangers" has already popped up in reduced form, and the heroes have already met Anti-Earth's sole, lonely hero, Mind Master (who, on their own world, is the villainous Mastermind). They are here to perform a rescue, arrived unplanned, with reduced resources... and the upstanding true-blue heroes among them are determined to "save the world", while the more down-to-Earth (I want to say pessimistic, but that's not really true) members of the group want to just do the rescue and make their way home.
This, then, raises the true point of this post: In a superheroic setting, are there any circumstances in which it is "reasonable" for a hero to be less than completely heroic?
This calls to the fundamental nature of a "hero", I suppose. To me, a hero is someone who, for whatever reason, helps to improve the lives of others without regard for personal gain or safety, and without regard for whom they are helping. I make that distinction quite purposefully, because it's possible for someone to help a specific person without regard for personal gain or safety, and not be heroic at all.
Now, in comics, the true, dyed in the wool heroes are larger than life personalities, clad in spandex, going around rescuing cats from trees, helping old ladies with their shopping and foiling bank robberies. The interesting stuff all tends to happen when a) their personal life gets involved or b) a particularly dastardly villain proves more than they can handle. But this particular situation is neither of those. It's a question of whether they truly are heroes, and what does being a hero mean to them.
Of course, I'm not so megalomaniacal that I believe that my definition of a hero is the true one, but I've not really seen anything that makes me want to change it. Nor am I going to enforce my beliefs onto my players - they have their characters, and they can play them however they want to, as far as I'm concerned.
For this situation, I'm only interested in the spectrum of heroism, rather than the full range of human responses. So, given that a hero's natural reaction to "bad things" is going to be "fix bad things", the range of possible actions is limited. As I see it, though, in the situation as presented, we have the two ends of the spectrum already - one the one hand there's "help those we came to help, and then get home", and on the other is "help everyone".
In a world not your own, where you are strangers, possibly feared, certainly hated by the powers that be, where does each hero stand? And why?
As I see it, a hero should want to help everyone. But in this circumstance, is it really feasible for their actions to match their desires? I don't actually think so. It's not their world, they have responsibilities to discharge in the universe they belong to, and the sheer scale of the problem on Anti-Earth is specifically tailored to be beyond them. They cannot just leap in and expect to win. And if they try, then they are running the risk of failing their own friends and families back home. But that should never stop the desire to help everyone. To have the potential to be larger than life.
Some may reach this conclusion quickly, for various reasons - perhaps they are smart enough to recognise that to win, they need more time to prepare, to gain every advantage they can. It's not something that can be won with fisticuffs - it needs social engineering on a grand scale, and is vastly beyond the intended scope of the current adventure. Which doesn't mean I would be upset if the players got proactive and decided to do something about it in the future.
In conclusion: A hero is still a hero even when they step away from a fight they can't win. Sometimes they are a hero because they step away from a fight. It is not actions that define a hero, but intent. And the intent should be an unthinking reaction to the welfare of others, and working to improve it. A hero is not a hero because they reasoned that it was the right thing to do, or because they feel responsible for others, or because they are looking to learn something about themselves. A hero is a hero because it is a fundamental part of who they are, which makes them do things to better the lives of others, and they don't think about it. They just do it. Not always the way they want, not always when they want, but they never turn their face away and give in.
Some people will say that a hero is someone who risks themselves to help others, but I don't see that. In the broader context of superheroics, characters like Superman are rarely in danger (Kryptonite notwithstanding), but I wouldn't dispute that he is a hero. One of my own roleplaying characters, Shadowe, in the City of Heroes MMO, is effectively immortal and unkillable, yet I believe that he is a hero, despite not really being in any true danger, no matter what he does. Spider-man is mortal, and became a hero out of guilt, and the awakening knowledge that "with great power comes great responsibility". Peter Parker could have taken that trite little phrase to mean that he has a responsibility to punish the guilty, as a way to assuage his own guilt. But instead he took the more difficult, and vastly more heroic, path to the real responsibility that heroes have - to help others. Because it is not about the dangers that heroes face. It never was, and never should be. It is about the ideals that they hold dear, and the constant striving to make the world a better place. Or, as Shadowe has been known to put it: "Making the world a nicer place, for one person at a time."
Monday, 24 August 2009
Weekly Games: M&M
This will probably be my last post on this for a little while, due to some significant changes happening in my life (as well as a lot of holiday) in the near future.
Now, that doesn't mean that my games will suffer, just that I'm unlikely to have the time to post on this blog.
Last night's session was really rather good: A fair chunk of characterisation, a plot-twist, and a lot of fun.
There are currently two threads of investigation: Joanne Blake, student at Claremont Academy; and Aiden O'Hara, assistant groundskeeper at the same establishment.
The ladies (Liberty Belle and Rapscallion) followed and found Joanne, and Raps had a nice conversation with her, while the men (Axelerator and Procyon) headed off to investigate the gardener. Scrub's player was unavailable, through no fault of his own, so he was relegated to the background - I had enough to handle as it was!
Split party adventuring is always tricky, but since it was all talky stuff, no combat, I felt confident that I would be able to handle it... and I believe I managed it with aplomb.
Joanne revealed herself to be a young student feeling the pressure of her teachers, struggling with the complexity of her learning (who said magic was easy?). It was discovered that she had, in the middle of the night, performed a magical ritual, intended to summon an imp to help tidy her room. According to Joanne, though, nothing happened, and the following day it was discovered that all of the teachers and adult support staff had vanished from the grounds. Joanne, feeling guilty and frustrated, came to the conclusion that it might be her fault, so kept quiet about it. She can't see how she could be to blame, but is afraid that she is.
The pair heading to see Aiden, the gardener, found his residence, and discovered evidence of a pretty wild party - beer, babes and bongs would be a pretty fair description. As events unfolded, though, it seems that there is something decidedly more sinister at work, here, as Aiden himself, along with an as-yet-unnamed girl, was crucified in his own bathroom, mystic symbols inscribed in their flesh.
No, I'm not above introducing some slightly dark themes to my games.
Now, I've said before that it takes a lot out of me to run this game, and it really does. But it's at times like this that I just love it! Up to now, everyone has been assuming the situation at Claremont is due to either Joanne or Aiden. Now the seed of doubt is thrown in, because it looks like it could be both.
I'm going to try to avoid spoiling my intended plotline with reveals about my thinking process, but I will offer my players a little teaser by pointing out that one of these events was not planned by me until the very last minute. The other was intended all along.
This brings me on to my preferred GMing style - winging it so much that I might as well be flying. Okay, let me clarify that a little. I don't just make stuff up as I go along, really, but I'm pretty well practiced at allowing events to pan out along a very loose plotline, and then suddenly bringing in details that match previous observations, but cast them in a completely new light.
I'm not very good at using red herrings, though. I like to interweave and combine all my plotlines into a single tapestry that, when viewed after the fact, looks stunning... but I can guarantee that I didn't actually plan it that way.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this style. The biggest disadvantage is that the plots can sometimes have little direction while I'm waiting for a flash of inspiration that will allow me to link it to what else is going on. In those situations, I tend to resort to events and encounters that don't require me to think all that much, and that can make a campaign stagnate. On the other side of the coin, though, when my mind is working the way it usually does, I am able to adapt events and encounters to the changing world in a coherent and sensible fashion, and the coolest thing it means is that player actions matter. If the PCs have a moment of insight, and come up with a brilliant plan, I'm not going to force events unless it will ruin the rest of the story. I'd much rather the players felt a sense of accomplishment, than my carefully crafted plotline flow out the way I've planned.
Let's take a quick look at the current situation in this game, as an example. What follows are pretty much my notes for this adventure, not counting NPC statistics, and this may contain spoilers (though I've removed huge chunks of them), so be warned:
The Scenario: The adult staff from Claremont Academy has vanished, and the heroes are drafted in to help find them.
1) Get the players involved. Use Serena Vervain (Seven) from Freedom City. Asking for help from heroes as trying to avoid the public eye.
2) Suspicious events. Gardener Aiden O'Hara not missing (under age 20), lives off-campus, hasn't been in to work since the first morning, though. Joanne Blake tried a summoning ritual that failed.
3) [Deleted due to spoilers] has resulted in the teachers being transported to [Deleted due to spoilers]. PCs must find a way to get there (piggy-back off previous event?).
4) Staff have been captured by [Deleted due to spoilers], and handed over to [Deleted due to spoilers], who consist of [Deleted due to spoilers].
Yes, that is an entire adventure, so far. Everything else that happens is completely off the cuff.
Essentially, it's a flagrant acknowledgement of my number one rule: No plot survives contact with the players. I know what's happened, I know why it's happened, and I know what's going to be happening right up until the PCs arrive on the scene... but after that, all bets are off. NPCs have to react to changes just as much as anyone else, and they only know what they know - though super-smart ones might be able to guess and have put contingencies in place that I will simply invent on the fly.
Many people might ask why I do it this way, and the simple answer is: Because otherwise I'll just be writing a story.
I like writing stories. I enjoy it a lot, and I get a kick out of it. But I like shared stories better. I like being surprised by what players come up with. I like stealing player ideas to improve my plots. And allowing the players to directly affect the outcome of the story is the best way I know of to ensure that they feel involved and a real part of the world we're building together.
Now, that doesn't mean that my games will suffer, just that I'm unlikely to have the time to post on this blog.
Last night's session was really rather good: A fair chunk of characterisation, a plot-twist, and a lot of fun.
There are currently two threads of investigation: Joanne Blake, student at Claremont Academy; and Aiden O'Hara, assistant groundskeeper at the same establishment.
The ladies (Liberty Belle and Rapscallion) followed and found Joanne, and Raps had a nice conversation with her, while the men (Axelerator and Procyon) headed off to investigate the gardener. Scrub's player was unavailable, through no fault of his own, so he was relegated to the background - I had enough to handle as it was!
Split party adventuring is always tricky, but since it was all talky stuff, no combat, I felt confident that I would be able to handle it... and I believe I managed it with aplomb.
Joanne revealed herself to be a young student feeling the pressure of her teachers, struggling with the complexity of her learning (who said magic was easy?). It was discovered that she had, in the middle of the night, performed a magical ritual, intended to summon an imp to help tidy her room. According to Joanne, though, nothing happened, and the following day it was discovered that all of the teachers and adult support staff had vanished from the grounds. Joanne, feeling guilty and frustrated, came to the conclusion that it might be her fault, so kept quiet about it. She can't see how she could be to blame, but is afraid that she is.
The pair heading to see Aiden, the gardener, found his residence, and discovered evidence of a pretty wild party - beer, babes and bongs would be a pretty fair description. As events unfolded, though, it seems that there is something decidedly more sinister at work, here, as Aiden himself, along with an as-yet-unnamed girl, was crucified in his own bathroom, mystic symbols inscribed in their flesh.
No, I'm not above introducing some slightly dark themes to my games.
Now, I've said before that it takes a lot out of me to run this game, and it really does. But it's at times like this that I just love it! Up to now, everyone has been assuming the situation at Claremont is due to either Joanne or Aiden. Now the seed of doubt is thrown in, because it looks like it could be both.
I'm going to try to avoid spoiling my intended plotline with reveals about my thinking process, but I will offer my players a little teaser by pointing out that one of these events was not planned by me until the very last minute. The other was intended all along.
This brings me on to my preferred GMing style - winging it so much that I might as well be flying. Okay, let me clarify that a little. I don't just make stuff up as I go along, really, but I'm pretty well practiced at allowing events to pan out along a very loose plotline, and then suddenly bringing in details that match previous observations, but cast them in a completely new light.
I'm not very good at using red herrings, though. I like to interweave and combine all my plotlines into a single tapestry that, when viewed after the fact, looks stunning... but I can guarantee that I didn't actually plan it that way.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this style. The biggest disadvantage is that the plots can sometimes have little direction while I'm waiting for a flash of inspiration that will allow me to link it to what else is going on. In those situations, I tend to resort to events and encounters that don't require me to think all that much, and that can make a campaign stagnate. On the other side of the coin, though, when my mind is working the way it usually does, I am able to adapt events and encounters to the changing world in a coherent and sensible fashion, and the coolest thing it means is that player actions matter. If the PCs have a moment of insight, and come up with a brilliant plan, I'm not going to force events unless it will ruin the rest of the story. I'd much rather the players felt a sense of accomplishment, than my carefully crafted plotline flow out the way I've planned.
Let's take a quick look at the current situation in this game, as an example. What follows are pretty much my notes for this adventure, not counting NPC statistics, and this may contain spoilers (though I've removed huge chunks of them), so be warned:
The Scenario: The adult staff from Claremont Academy has vanished, and the heroes are drafted in to help find them.
1) Get the players involved. Use Serena Vervain (Seven) from Freedom City. Asking for help from heroes as trying to avoid the public eye.
2) Suspicious events. Gardener Aiden O'Hara not missing (under age 20), lives off-campus, hasn't been in to work since the first morning, though. Joanne Blake tried a summoning ritual that failed.
3) [Deleted due to spoilers] has resulted in the teachers being transported to [Deleted due to spoilers]. PCs must find a way to get there (piggy-back off previous event?).
4) Staff have been captured by [Deleted due to spoilers], and handed over to [Deleted due to spoilers], who consist of [Deleted due to spoilers].
Yes, that is an entire adventure, so far. Everything else that happens is completely off the cuff.
Essentially, it's a flagrant acknowledgement of my number one rule: No plot survives contact with the players. I know what's happened, I know why it's happened, and I know what's going to be happening right up until the PCs arrive on the scene... but after that, all bets are off. NPCs have to react to changes just as much as anyone else, and they only know what they know - though super-smart ones might be able to guess and have put contingencies in place that I will simply invent on the fly.
Many people might ask why I do it this way, and the simple answer is: Because otherwise I'll just be writing a story.
I like writing stories. I enjoy it a lot, and I get a kick out of it. But I like shared stories better. I like being surprised by what players come up with. I like stealing player ideas to improve my plots. And allowing the players to directly affect the outcome of the story is the best way I know of to ensure that they feel involved and a real part of the world we're building together.
Monday, 27 July 2009
Weekly Games: M&M
Okay, it was uncertain as to whether this post was ever going to be written. As anyone who read/commented on my previous post about this game will know, there were a few... struggles.
Well, that seems to have been pretty much cleared up, now (I hope), and last night we started the next adventure in the lives of the heroes.
There's been some shuffling around in the roster of the party (due to players being unable to commit to the game, and other players deciding that four tanks is more than enough.
So, here's the current crew:
Liberty Belle: Patriotic heroine and wielder of the Mace of Liberty (anyone else think that's funny?), this personification of Truth, Justice and the American Way is always there to Protect The Innocent and fight for Liberty (and so does her cape! Seriously - I love the cape. It's awesome)!
Axelerator: The team's resident speedster, a Russian immigrant who makes no attempt to hide his identity.
Procyon: Not an invasive medical procedure, this Energy Projector/Blaster uses the power of cosmic energy to fight the forces of evil!
Scrub: And if anyone else immediately thinks of a certain American hospital sitcom, I'm not alone! Scrub is a mystical wielder of arcane energies, particularly tied to the elements and natural world.
Rapscallion: Tech. Tech-techity-tech-tech-tech. With some added gadgetry and tech thrown in. Plus tech. We're talking stealth suit, flight belt, bike-mounted rocket launchers, blaster pistols, lock-picking gear, the works.
Fresh from the defeat (or was it...) of the Zodiac conspiracy, our heroes are flushed with success, becoming famous, and making a little headway into the crime prevalent in Freedom City with the absence of the Freedom League.
This week was a very talky session, with an NPC character asking for help with a slight problem - it seems that all of the teachers and adult staff at Claremont Academy (the local school for children with superpowers - not that most people know this) have vanished, and the kids have decided to ask for some discrete help from the heroes.
That was basically all that happened, but the character interaction was really coming out well - particularly the burgeoning relationship between Procyon and Rapscallion suffering as the extremely attractive Serena Vervain was asking them for help.
I enjoyed myself thoroughly, even with my usual struggle to manage RPing a character that isn't actually my own (Serena is an NPC from the Freedom City campaign setting), but I think I was able to pull it off.
The investigative side of the adventure - as well as the links to the previous adeventure - are due to kick off next session, so I'm just going to leave things with this thought:
Talking to players never hurts. Talking to GM never hurts, either. And if you're feeling the strain, taking a break and doing something different is a good thing.
Well, that seems to have been pretty much cleared up, now (I hope), and last night we started the next adventure in the lives of the heroes.
There's been some shuffling around in the roster of the party (due to players being unable to commit to the game, and other players deciding that four tanks is more than enough.
So, here's the current crew:
Liberty Belle: Patriotic heroine and wielder of the Mace of Liberty (anyone else think that's funny?), this personification of Truth, Justice and the American Way is always there to Protect The Innocent and fight for Liberty (and so does her cape! Seriously - I love the cape. It's awesome)!
Axelerator: The team's resident speedster, a Russian immigrant who makes no attempt to hide his identity.
Procyon: Not an invasive medical procedure, this Energy Projector/Blaster uses the power of cosmic energy to fight the forces of evil!
Scrub: And if anyone else immediately thinks of a certain American hospital sitcom, I'm not alone! Scrub is a mystical wielder of arcane energies, particularly tied to the elements and natural world.
Rapscallion: Tech. Tech-techity-tech-tech-tech. With some added gadgetry and tech thrown in. Plus tech. We're talking stealth suit, flight belt, bike-mounted rocket launchers, blaster pistols, lock-picking gear, the works.
Fresh from the defeat (or was it...) of the Zodiac conspiracy, our heroes are flushed with success, becoming famous, and making a little headway into the crime prevalent in Freedom City with the absence of the Freedom League.
This week was a very talky session, with an NPC character asking for help with a slight problem - it seems that all of the teachers and adult staff at Claremont Academy (the local school for children with superpowers - not that most people know this) have vanished, and the kids have decided to ask for some discrete help from the heroes.
That was basically all that happened, but the character interaction was really coming out well - particularly the burgeoning relationship between Procyon and Rapscallion suffering as the extremely attractive Serena Vervain was asking them for help.
I enjoyed myself thoroughly, even with my usual struggle to manage RPing a character that isn't actually my own (Serena is an NPC from the Freedom City campaign setting), but I think I was able to pull it off.
The investigative side of the adventure - as well as the links to the previous adeventure - are due to kick off next session, so I'm just going to leave things with this thought:
Talking to players never hurts. Talking to GM never hurts, either. And if you're feeling the strain, taking a break and doing something different is a good thing.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Weekly Games: M&M
On In Character Perspective and Paying Attention
Okay, it looks like my weekly Mutants & Masterminds game might have died a death last night. Which is a great shame, personally, because I had a lot more stories to play.
As an experiment, though, I believe it was successful, and I can happily report the following conclusion:
Without custom online playing tools, running an online Pen & Paper RPG is HARD. I regularly had upwards of ten open windows, just to manage normal play, as well as all of the rulebooks immediately to hand. It went smoothest when I had my darling wife acting as an assistant GM for me.
Now, this is not to say that it's impossible. It's not. It's just a lot of hard work. And when RPing becomes hard work, it stops being fun. Not a lot of point playing if you're not having fun.
Anyway, things kind of blew up a bit, last night. I'm still fairly bitter about what happened, but I'll try not to let that colour my points too much.
Okay, here's the scene:
The heroes have just rescued the Atlantean Princess from the villainous plot to hook her into a weather control machine, through the simple expedient of blowing the machine up with a rocket attack, and then beating the stuffing out of the bad guys.
Yay, awesome, woohoo and so forth.
The heroes are planning on taking the crooks to a police station that is capable of handling super-powered prisoners.
Fail the first: When informed that the anti-super police squad have their HQ at 14th precinct, opening the magical portal to 16th precinct doesn't help.
During the course of events, as the prisoners are being dragged toward the magical portal to the (wrong) police station, the Atlantean Princess mentions that the villains' plan involved hooking her up to "that strange machine".
Now, I'm going to digress here for a moment, to consider a few things about the Princess. Firstly, she's never visited the surface world before. Second, she lives underwater. Thirdly, electricity and water (especially salt water, like you tend to find in oceans) really do not mix. Fourthly, to the best of my knowledge (aided by a university course in geophysics), there's not a lot of weather in the depths of the oceans. So I don't consider it to be especially unusual that the Princess would consider a Reed-Richards-esque, high-technology, computer-controlled, human-interface weather control machine to be "strange".
Fail the second: When RPing online, and your GM has you as a friend on Steam, if you go off to play another game that is registered there, your GM gets a pop-up that tells him what you're doing.
I had some ideas on what to do when the players dragged the villains to the anti-super police squad's HQ. I was prepared to wing it, when it became clear that they were heading somewhere completely different.
So, thinks I, here we go for an RP-intensive cooldown session.
Fail the third: If you turn up for an online game session an hour after it starts, expressing surprise that very little has happened (other than some obviously unimportant dialogue) is not condusive to a fun mood.
I then got stopped dead. Completely. Utterly. As in, the-GM's-brain-has-stopped-functioning-because-he-cannot-comprehend-what-you-are-asking.
I can't remember the exact words, as I'm nowhere near my logs as I write this, but it went something like this:
"Strange machine? I don't remember nothing about no strange machine!"
"What does it look like? We can't continue until we get a response from Chem about this."
"Chem? Is it big? Small? Square? Round? What colour is it?"
Fail the fourth: When, in-character, a character who would not know what a weather control machine would looks like mentions a "strange machine", and the GM has only ever mentioned one machine being in that room, with that machine being the now-destroyed weather control machine that said character wouldn't recognise the appearance of, it is not the GREATEST leap of logic to assume that, since you, the players, destroyed said weather control machine last session, that just might be the "strange machine" to which the Atlantean Princess who has never even seen a car, radio or computer before is referring. Maybe.
Result: Game-lock. I kid you not. Because the players could not continue without getting a detailed description of a machine that they blew up last session.
I, not to put too fine a point on it, was stunned. Completely. So utterly stunned that I had to go outside for a cigarette (don't smoke - it's bad for you). While I was gone my darling wife (with my blessing) took over the keyboard for me and got so frustrated with the replies she got that she logged out of the chat server.
Again, I kid you not. Apparently, asking for a detailed description of a room-sized piece of destroyed machinery is "trying to move the game toward the police station". I still can't figure out how.
I will always believe that no plot survives contact with the players, but there's a difference between the plot and "extraneous gubbins".
So, as a result of this, it's quite likely that the game isn't going to go anywhere. Which is a shame, because it has been a lot of fun, but at the same time it's been a lot of work.
Okay, it looks like my weekly Mutants & Masterminds game might have died a death last night. Which is a great shame, personally, because I had a lot more stories to play.
As an experiment, though, I believe it was successful, and I can happily report the following conclusion:
Without custom online playing tools, running an online Pen & Paper RPG is HARD. I regularly had upwards of ten open windows, just to manage normal play, as well as all of the rulebooks immediately to hand. It went smoothest when I had my darling wife acting as an assistant GM for me.
Now, this is not to say that it's impossible. It's not. It's just a lot of hard work. And when RPing becomes hard work, it stops being fun. Not a lot of point playing if you're not having fun.
Anyway, things kind of blew up a bit, last night. I'm still fairly bitter about what happened, but I'll try not to let that colour my points too much.
Okay, here's the scene:
The heroes have just rescued the Atlantean Princess from the villainous plot to hook her into a weather control machine, through the simple expedient of blowing the machine up with a rocket attack, and then beating the stuffing out of the bad guys.
Yay, awesome, woohoo and so forth.
The heroes are planning on taking the crooks to a police station that is capable of handling super-powered prisoners.
Fail the first: When informed that the anti-super police squad have their HQ at 14th precinct, opening the magical portal to 16th precinct doesn't help.
During the course of events, as the prisoners are being dragged toward the magical portal to the (wrong) police station, the Atlantean Princess mentions that the villains' plan involved hooking her up to "that strange machine".
Now, I'm going to digress here for a moment, to consider a few things about the Princess. Firstly, she's never visited the surface world before. Second, she lives underwater. Thirdly, electricity and water (especially salt water, like you tend to find in oceans) really do not mix. Fourthly, to the best of my knowledge (aided by a university course in geophysics), there's not a lot of weather in the depths of the oceans. So I don't consider it to be especially unusual that the Princess would consider a Reed-Richards-esque, high-technology, computer-controlled, human-interface weather control machine to be "strange".
Fail the second: When RPing online, and your GM has you as a friend on Steam, if you go off to play another game that is registered there, your GM gets a pop-up that tells him what you're doing.
I had some ideas on what to do when the players dragged the villains to the anti-super police squad's HQ. I was prepared to wing it, when it became clear that they were heading somewhere completely different.
So, thinks I, here we go for an RP-intensive cooldown session.
Fail the third: If you turn up for an online game session an hour after it starts, expressing surprise that very little has happened (other than some obviously unimportant dialogue) is not condusive to a fun mood.
I then got stopped dead. Completely. Utterly. As in, the-GM's-brain-has-stopped-functioning-because-he-cannot-comprehend-what-you-are-asking.
I can't remember the exact words, as I'm nowhere near my logs as I write this, but it went something like this:
"Strange machine? I don't remember nothing about no strange machine!"
"What does it look like? We can't continue until we get a response from Chem about this."
"Chem? Is it big? Small? Square? Round? What colour is it?"
Fail the fourth: When, in-character, a character who would not know what a weather control machine would looks like mentions a "strange machine", and the GM has only ever mentioned one machine being in that room, with that machine being the now-destroyed weather control machine that said character wouldn't recognise the appearance of, it is not the GREATEST leap of logic to assume that, since you, the players, destroyed said weather control machine last session, that just might be the "strange machine" to which the Atlantean Princess who has never even seen a car, radio or computer before is referring. Maybe.
Result: Game-lock. I kid you not. Because the players could not continue without getting a detailed description of a machine that they blew up last session.
I, not to put too fine a point on it, was stunned. Completely. So utterly stunned that I had to go outside for a cigarette (don't smoke - it's bad for you). While I was gone my darling wife (with my blessing) took over the keyboard for me and got so frustrated with the replies she got that she logged out of the chat server.
Again, I kid you not. Apparently, asking for a detailed description of a room-sized piece of destroyed machinery is "trying to move the game toward the police station". I still can't figure out how.
I will always believe that no plot survives contact with the players, but there's a difference between the plot and "extraneous gubbins".
So, as a result of this, it's quite likely that the game isn't going to go anywhere. Which is a shame, because it has been a lot of fun, but at the same time it's been a lot of work.
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Epic Blogathon? Unlikely. Touching base, more like.
"Chemlak, you've been gone so long! What's the matter?"
Okay, no one's actually asked me that. That's okay, you're all busy people. So am I. That's kind of what's been happening, really. Life got a bit busy for a while.
And it probably will be getting busier in the near future, so there'll be even less posts from me for a while.
Having said that, though, I'll try to squeeze my weekly (*cough* that didn't work well, did it? *cough*) updates on my regular games in at some point.
So, what has Chem been up to?
Well, other than the day job, pretty much the usual.
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday = City of Heroes (either playing or roleplaying)
Wednesday = 4E Dungeons and Dragons
Sunday = Mutants and Masterminds
As far as City of Heroes is concerned - I've recently started enjoying myself more and more.
Now, to anyone who doesn't know CoH - and more particularly roleplaying in CoH, on the European servers, the unofficial RP server is Union, and on that server, there are two regular and fixed RP meeting places, where anyone is welcome to drop in: Underneath the Galaxy Girl statue in the Galaxy City zone, and the bars in Pocket D. Of course, people RP in other places, but those are where you end up if you just want to RP a character. Suits me fine. My main character, Shadowe, frequented the Galaxy Girl meet (9pm UK time, every day) from mid-2006 until a few months ago. Now I drag him along to Pocket D, and I have to admit, I'm having a blast. New faces, new conversations, new everything, to me. Great fun.
One thing that recently changed in CoH is the introduction of the RPers dream - user created content, aka Mission Architect. We can write our own missions! Populate them with custom enemies! Write the dialogue! It's great. But I have spent an age pondering it, unsure how to actually use this feature for roleplaying.
Then a friend of mine decided to run a plot, using an Architect storyline for the missions. It was fantastic fun, well written, and generally well managed - though there were one or two problems. Undettered, though, we carried on, and saved the day, in a way that has never been possible before. I even wrote a little guide for using Architect as a plot-master, and posted it on the Official Forum for the game. You can find it here: http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=1376229&an=0&page=0#Post1376229
In Dungeons and Dragons, we've been carrying on the published adventure, and I'm enjoying it more and more. Maybe it's just me getting more experiences with the system, but my objections to it are being slowly worn away thanks to two things: The enthusiasm my gaming group is showing for it, and the fact that I remembered GMing Rule Zero - the rules are there to help tell the story. If they get in the way, IGNORE THE RULES.
Yay! Peace reigns, because Chem remembered that he could do what he wanted, and found reasonable.
For Mutants and Masterminds the adventure continues. We've finished the current "episode" (for want of a better term), which means that the story has reached a convenient break point, and I intend to have a couple of relaxing weeks before diving back into the campaign's meta-plot.
That's it from me, for now. More soon, hopefully.
Okay, no one's actually asked me that. That's okay, you're all busy people. So am I. That's kind of what's been happening, really. Life got a bit busy for a while.
And it probably will be getting busier in the near future, so there'll be even less posts from me for a while.
Having said that, though, I'll try to squeeze my weekly (*cough* that didn't work well, did it? *cough*) updates on my regular games in at some point.
So, what has Chem been up to?
Well, other than the day job, pretty much the usual.
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday = City of Heroes (either playing or roleplaying)
Wednesday = 4E Dungeons and Dragons
Sunday = Mutants and Masterminds
As far as City of Heroes is concerned - I've recently started enjoying myself more and more.
Now, to anyone who doesn't know CoH - and more particularly roleplaying in CoH, on the European servers, the unofficial RP server is Union, and on that server, there are two regular and fixed RP meeting places, where anyone is welcome to drop in: Underneath the Galaxy Girl statue in the Galaxy City zone, and the bars in Pocket D. Of course, people RP in other places, but those are where you end up if you just want to RP a character. Suits me fine. My main character, Shadowe, frequented the Galaxy Girl meet (9pm UK time, every day) from mid-2006 until a few months ago. Now I drag him along to Pocket D, and I have to admit, I'm having a blast. New faces, new conversations, new everything, to me. Great fun.
One thing that recently changed in CoH is the introduction of the RPers dream - user created content, aka Mission Architect. We can write our own missions! Populate them with custom enemies! Write the dialogue! It's great. But I have spent an age pondering it, unsure how to actually use this feature for roleplaying.
Then a friend of mine decided to run a plot, using an Architect storyline for the missions. It was fantastic fun, well written, and generally well managed - though there were one or two problems. Undettered, though, we carried on, and saved the day, in a way that has never been possible before. I even wrote a little guide for using Architect as a plot-master, and posted it on the Official Forum for the game. You can find it here: http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=1376229&an=0&page=0#Post1376229
In Dungeons and Dragons, we've been carrying on the published adventure, and I'm enjoying it more and more. Maybe it's just me getting more experiences with the system, but my objections to it are being slowly worn away thanks to two things: The enthusiasm my gaming group is showing for it, and the fact that I remembered GMing Rule Zero - the rules are there to help tell the story. If they get in the way, IGNORE THE RULES.
Yay! Peace reigns, because Chem remembered that he could do what he wanted, and found reasonable.
For Mutants and Masterminds the adventure continues. We've finished the current "episode" (for want of a better term), which means that the story has reached a convenient break point, and I intend to have a couple of relaxing weeks before diving back into the campaign's meta-plot.
That's it from me, for now. More soon, hopefully.
Monday, 20 April 2009
Weekly Games: M&M
Wow.
Considering what happened last time we actually played my M&M game, I'm really chuffed with how last night went.
Exercising my rights as a GM, I finished the previous scene with an outcome that was both suitable and probable - Tia Henderson's children were rescued, the crooks were carted off to jail, and the old lady had a collapse requiring her to be taken to hospital. That cleared up what happened to the players who didn't show due to other commitments. Oh, and gave me a good excuse to hand out a hero point to all of the players.
Everyone else headed back to the school, the kids in tow, and we could move on to the real crux of the session - the introduction of Gemini and the news that the PC's identities have been compromised (and before anyone panics and thinks "Ebil GM has ruined secret identity RP!" - no, I haven't. I always leave myself an out).
Liberty Belle, in her secret identity of Tia Henderson (and I still get Agent Smith in my head saying "Ms. Henderson"...), has noticed that she is being watched. She reveals that information to Special Agent Brown of the FBI, in the hearing of the other heroes, who suddenly (okay, sometimes the d20 system gets a little silly) get cautious and start looking around themselves... and manage to identifty their own stalkers, who are all engaged in a discussion over short-wave radios.
Oni (awesomely powerful and generally ultra-dude) blasts himself up to full speed (which is pretty insane - IIRC it's 22,000 feet as a move action) and tries to steal a radio... which he does. Phew.
Rapscallion (tech-dudette and pistolier extraordinaire) uses her cloaking device and intimidates her stalker into surrendering his radio.
All well and good.
Then ensued one of the most fun conversations I've had in a while.
A woman comes on the radio, and starts a dialogue with Oni - calling him "Oni", "Target 2" and "Jason", just to drive the truth home about how much deep doo-doo he's actually in.
"... actually I was getting sort of attached to being called 'Target 2', but you can call me whatever you like."
"Well, given that I'm currently watching you down the barrel of a rifle loaded with an armour piercing bullet, how about I just call you... dead?"
BANG!
...
Okay, I'm not that cruel. She actually shot the stalker, not Oni. It was deliberate, intentional, and oh so damn cold.
While everyone at the school panics and scrambles inside to get under cover, Rapscallion handcuffs her stalker to a railing-fence... and he then gets shot, too.
Gemini is a cold-hearted bitch.
Scouting the area, Rapscallion spots a figure on the roof of the school... but it turns out to be a man in the uniform of an air-conditioning repair and maintenance firm. He left (the huge wall of spandex was pretty scary, really), and the heroes quickly checked the rooftop... only to find two bullet-casings.
The mystery deepens.
*****
Okay, that was pretty much the entire session - which was about an hour and a half of play-time, all told. None too shabby, if you ask me.
I've now introduced (formally) Scorpio, Pisces, Virgo and Gemini. There have been others, too, but I'm keeping quiet about who and when they were met.
Here's hoping that the next session goes as well as this one did.
Considering what happened last time we actually played my M&M game, I'm really chuffed with how last night went.
Exercising my rights as a GM, I finished the previous scene with an outcome that was both suitable and probable - Tia Henderson's children were rescued, the crooks were carted off to jail, and the old lady had a collapse requiring her to be taken to hospital. That cleared up what happened to the players who didn't show due to other commitments. Oh, and gave me a good excuse to hand out a hero point to all of the players.
Everyone else headed back to the school, the kids in tow, and we could move on to the real crux of the session - the introduction of Gemini and the news that the PC's identities have been compromised (and before anyone panics and thinks "Ebil GM has ruined secret identity RP!" - no, I haven't. I always leave myself an out).
Liberty Belle, in her secret identity of Tia Henderson (and I still get Agent Smith in my head saying "Ms. Henderson"...), has noticed that she is being watched. She reveals that information to Special Agent Brown of the FBI, in the hearing of the other heroes, who suddenly (okay, sometimes the d20 system gets a little silly) get cautious and start looking around themselves... and manage to identifty their own stalkers, who are all engaged in a discussion over short-wave radios.
Oni (awesomely powerful and generally ultra-dude) blasts himself up to full speed (which is pretty insane - IIRC it's 22,000 feet as a move action) and tries to steal a radio... which he does. Phew.
Rapscallion (tech-dudette and pistolier extraordinaire) uses her cloaking device and intimidates her stalker into surrendering his radio.
All well and good.
Then ensued one of the most fun conversations I've had in a while.
A woman comes on the radio, and starts a dialogue with Oni - calling him "Oni", "Target 2" and "Jason", just to drive the truth home about how much deep doo-doo he's actually in.
"... actually I was getting sort of attached to being called 'Target 2', but you can call me whatever you like."
"Well, given that I'm currently watching you down the barrel of a rifle loaded with an armour piercing bullet, how about I just call you... dead?"
BANG!
...
Okay, I'm not that cruel. She actually shot the stalker, not Oni. It was deliberate, intentional, and oh so damn cold.
While everyone at the school panics and scrambles inside to get under cover, Rapscallion handcuffs her stalker to a railing-fence... and he then gets shot, too.
Gemini is a cold-hearted bitch.
Scouting the area, Rapscallion spots a figure on the roof of the school... but it turns out to be a man in the uniform of an air-conditioning repair and maintenance firm. He left (the huge wall of spandex was pretty scary, really), and the heroes quickly checked the rooftop... only to find two bullet-casings.
The mystery deepens.
*****
Okay, that was pretty much the entire session - which was about an hour and a half of play-time, all told. None too shabby, if you ask me.
I've now introduced (formally) Scorpio, Pisces, Virgo and Gemini. There have been others, too, but I'm keeping quiet about who and when they were met.
Here's hoping that the next session goes as well as this one did.
Monday, 6 April 2009
Okay, so what's M&M?
What follows is an email I sent to Rockjaw (that's Stephen Reid to some of you) about Mutants and Masterminds, the Open Gaming License and why I think M&M is the bee's knees for Superhero RPGs.
Right, a quick rundown on OGL stuff, first. The vast majority of them are
fantasy games, and *do* require the D&D 3.5E rulebooks to run. Exceptions to
this that spring to mind are Spycraft and M&M.
At its core, the d20 system is very clear and simple (here's the 3.5
System Reference Document:
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/srd/srd_revised_html/index.html), but
any given OGL can pick and choose which parts they want to use. So, M&M uses
Basics and Ability Scores, Skills I, Skills II, Feats, Carrying Movement and
Exploration, Combat I and Combat II. The rest of the system is homegrown by
Green Ronin.
The system itself is simple and relatively intuitive - roll 1d20, apply
modifiers, try to equal or beat a target number (known as the Difficulty Class,
or DC). In M&M *absolutely everything* is resolved with rolls like that.
Want to see if you can hack into a secure computer system? Roll 1d20 plus
modifiers. Resisting damage from an attack? Roll 1d20 plus modifiers. In fact,
that last part is probably the single largest departure from "normal" d20 rules
- there's no Hit Points and no Damage Rolls. Which, quite frankly, is great! It
certainly saves on the types of dice you end up using.
Another thing about M&M that differs from standard d20 rules is
that it's not a level-based system. You don't start at 1st level and work your
way up. Instead, the GM sets the campaigns starting "Power Level" (typically 10,
and *roughly* analogous to levels in D&D), which determines the number of
Power Points on which you can build a character. Pretty much everything (Ability
scores, Combat Attributes, Saving Throws, Skills, Feats, Powers, Equipment) is
purchased from that pool of points. As far as Powers are concerned, the system
for determining the cost of a power is almost as diverse as that from Champions
(to use a system I know you're familiar with), but it doesn't need a calculator,
since it deals exclusively in whole numbers, for simplicity.
Essentially, it has the versatility of Champions as far as character
creation is concerned, combined with the simplicity of the d20 mechanic for
rules resolution.
And that doesn't even touch on some of the interesting features of the
GMing system.
For example, in almost every other game I've seen, what Champions would
call a DNPC (a child of your character, for example), would be a drawback or
disadvantage, granting extra points with which to build your character, M&M
doesn't do it that way. Instead of giving you extra points, it considers one
those things to be a "Complication". Complications are basically things about
your character that are story-based, rather than being directly tied to the
character's capabilities. Other examples would include having a tyrannical boss
at work, having a secret identity or being a child and needing to go to school.
Whenever the GM throws something at you that ties in to a complication (stopping
the bank robbery will make you late for school, for example), you get a Hero
Point. Hero Points are the M&M version of what many games call Action
Points, or similar - a pool of points that you can burn to give yourself
temporary buffs, or improve rolls and so forth. Plus, it is *explicitly stated
in the rules* that at any time the GM
may exercise GM's Fiat to force an
outcome (say, allow the Supervillain to escape), but doing so grants all of the
PCs a Hero Point.
I love that last bit - it's saying "We know you GMs are going to cheat
to help the story... so we're going to build it into the rules, and give the
players a reward whenever you do it".
That's pretty much it. The rest is all the nitty-gritty of the rules
themselves.
Pros: Detailed character creation to rival any other system; simple
rules mechanic; flexible and story-driven GMing system.
Cons: Detailed character creation can mean that it takes *hours* to
tweak a character; "Yet another" d20 game, which will put some players
off.
Weekly Games: M&M
Okay, firstly, my apologies. I'm running on about 4 hours sleep, not enough caffeine, and a lot of frustration.
Last night I tried to run my weekly Mutants and Masterminds game. I love the system, for a lot of reasons, and I have a pretty hefty plotline on the go (okay, so some of it is being constructed on the fly, but I've left myself a lot of wiggle room, so that's okay).
For any of my players reading this - there are some spoilers in here, so please try to maintain Player vs. Character knowledge separation.
The Situation
As a result of interfering with the Zodiac group's plans once too often, a group of stealthy watchers (ninjas? Maybe) have been sent to follow the heroes. Thanks to this, one of the characters' secret identities has been effectively blown, and the bad guys have decided to make their displeasure known - by kidnapping said character's children.
(For anyone interested, I used the tracking rules from M&M, and no, not one of the heroes has noticed that they're being followed. Yet.)
This is a side-plot. A use of a complication to enhance the story a little. The kidnappers are negligible in threat to the PCs - if they can stand for more than two rounds of combat against the party, it can only be as the result of some abominable dice rolls.
In fact, the main aim of the scene is so that at least one of the players can find out that they're being followed.
All well and good. Now for the frustrating part.
The M&M game is being played over IRC, on a private server. We have two channels dedicated to the game on that server - an IC channel and an OOC channel. All game mechanics are dealt with in the OOC channel (we even have a dice bot on the server to allow public rolls), with the IC channel reserved for descriptions and IC speech.
In addition to this, I, as the GM, have the following running when we play a combat scene:
HeroLab with a profile containing all of the characters in the scene.
HeroLab Tactical Console for tracking damage and initiative.
HeroLab Dice Roller for GM only private dice rolls.
All 6 characters open in their own tabs of a web-browser, for another reference source.
Plus I have the M&M rulebook, Ultimate Power and the Freedom City campaign setting books within easy reach, or open, with bookmarks to important or relevant pages.
I do not use mapping software, preferring my own imagination to paint the scene. I might change this practice, after last night.
During a fight, I have to keep track of the IC channel, the OOC channel, HeroLab Profile, Tactical Console and Dice Roller, as well as the combat system from the M&M rulebook. I've never run an M&M game around a table, so my knowledge of the combat rules is a little sketchy, despite its similarity to D&D.
Maybe I'm taking on too much, and should share some of the responsibility. On the other hand, I'm trying to keep as much of the mechanics invisible to the players, so that they can focus on description and heroism.
The Scene
The kidnappers have made a potentially fatal mistake - they had to stop for fuel only a short distance away from where they snatched the children. The heroes have raced to the gas station, because the security cameras managed to peg the SUV's license plate and alerted the authorities.
I based my mental image of the petrol station on one I use a lot, close to my home. There were three vehicles refueling (one of them being the SUV, with a man who wasn't the driver actually at the pump), a fuel truck refilling the station's storage tank, and an old granny using the ATM.
What Happened
Things went swimmingly for the first couple of actions. Sure, the players didn't do what I was expecting, but I've always maintained that no plot survives contact with the players, so that wasn't a surprise. We have the makings of a gunfight on a petrol station forecourt.
AWESOME!
Two of the PCs were standing beside the SUV, having both attacked the guy fueling it at short range. The driver of the SUV slammed his vehicle into reverse, hurling it backwards a few feet, hitting the obnoxious guy waiting behing him in a sports car, and sending both vehicles into a spin.
...
So I don't think it's all that unreasonable for the two characters standing next to the rear end of the SUV before it started moving to be at risk of being hit by it as it spins, so I call for Reflex saves from them both.
Not according to my players.
To be fair, I may not have described the scene well enough. They may have had a poor understanding of position and where the vehicles were.
I have 11 screens open on my PC to manage this scene. I'm trying to update information and provide descriptive text in realtime to ensure that it goes as smoothly and quickly as possible, so that the players don't have to wait while I trawl through notes and information and stuff in books before typing things up.
The last thing I need at a time like that is a rules discussion. Heck, not really a rules discussion, but an objection to my interpretation of the scene.
If a 15 foot vehicle that you are standing within 5 feet of goes into a flat spin, you are at risk of being hit by it. That's simple geometry. I do not have time to discuss geometry while I'm trying to keep a fight moving smoothly, alt+tabbing between 11 different screens, clicking, adjusting, typing descriptions and so forth.
To answer the objections that were raised would have resulted in the scene grinding to a halt. We hadn't even finished the first round of combat, and already the scene was at risk of stopping.
Combat scenes in this game are slow. They take forever to resolve. I love the game, I'm enjoying the plot and the story that's coming out as the players get involved and regularly bend the plot over a barrel, but any amount of fighting is a pain in the ass to resolve. It's the most stressful thing I do on a regular basis, in fact. Work is a doddle, compared to the prospect of running a fight in my M&M game. Which doesn't stop me enjoying it. It's just a lot of stress, and a lot of work.
So... I logged out. I really couldn't handle it, and I didn't want to get involved in a discussion with six other people about why I was unable to handle it - the management of the game is meant to be invisible to the players. They have no need to know how much work I do to keep things running, because all I want is for them to enjoy the story.
We'll undoubtedly resume next week, hopefully with me in a better frame of mind.
I'm seriously considering some sort of mapping software, though. Not an online tabletop, though - just a shared map. That would really help, except for the fact that I prefer non-mapped RP combat, and M&M's combat system is designed to be non-mapped.
We'll see.
Last night I tried to run my weekly Mutants and Masterminds game. I love the system, for a lot of reasons, and I have a pretty hefty plotline on the go (okay, so some of it is being constructed on the fly, but I've left myself a lot of wiggle room, so that's okay).
For any of my players reading this - there are some spoilers in here, so please try to maintain Player vs. Character knowledge separation.
The Situation
As a result of interfering with the Zodiac group's plans once too often, a group of stealthy watchers (ninjas? Maybe) have been sent to follow the heroes. Thanks to this, one of the characters' secret identities has been effectively blown, and the bad guys have decided to make their displeasure known - by kidnapping said character's children.
(For anyone interested, I used the tracking rules from M&M, and no, not one of the heroes has noticed that they're being followed. Yet.)
This is a side-plot. A use of a complication to enhance the story a little. The kidnappers are negligible in threat to the PCs - if they can stand for more than two rounds of combat against the party, it can only be as the result of some abominable dice rolls.
In fact, the main aim of the scene is so that at least one of the players can find out that they're being followed.
All well and good. Now for the frustrating part.
The M&M game is being played over IRC, on a private server. We have two channels dedicated to the game on that server - an IC channel and an OOC channel. All game mechanics are dealt with in the OOC channel (we even have a dice bot on the server to allow public rolls), with the IC channel reserved for descriptions and IC speech.
In addition to this, I, as the GM, have the following running when we play a combat scene:
HeroLab with a profile containing all of the characters in the scene.
HeroLab Tactical Console for tracking damage and initiative.
HeroLab Dice Roller for GM only private dice rolls.
All 6 characters open in their own tabs of a web-browser, for another reference source.
Plus I have the M&M rulebook, Ultimate Power and the Freedom City campaign setting books within easy reach, or open, with bookmarks to important or relevant pages.
I do not use mapping software, preferring my own imagination to paint the scene. I might change this practice, after last night.
During a fight, I have to keep track of the IC channel, the OOC channel, HeroLab Profile, Tactical Console and Dice Roller, as well as the combat system from the M&M rulebook. I've never run an M&M game around a table, so my knowledge of the combat rules is a little sketchy, despite its similarity to D&D.
Maybe I'm taking on too much, and should share some of the responsibility. On the other hand, I'm trying to keep as much of the mechanics invisible to the players, so that they can focus on description and heroism.
The Scene
The kidnappers have made a potentially fatal mistake - they had to stop for fuel only a short distance away from where they snatched the children. The heroes have raced to the gas station, because the security cameras managed to peg the SUV's license plate and alerted the authorities.
I based my mental image of the petrol station on one I use a lot, close to my home. There were three vehicles refueling (one of them being the SUV, with a man who wasn't the driver actually at the pump), a fuel truck refilling the station's storage tank, and an old granny using the ATM.
What Happened
Things went swimmingly for the first couple of actions. Sure, the players didn't do what I was expecting, but I've always maintained that no plot survives contact with the players, so that wasn't a surprise. We have the makings of a gunfight on a petrol station forecourt.
AWESOME!
Two of the PCs were standing beside the SUV, having both attacked the guy fueling it at short range. The driver of the SUV slammed his vehicle into reverse, hurling it backwards a few feet, hitting the obnoxious guy waiting behing him in a sports car, and sending both vehicles into a spin.
...
So I don't think it's all that unreasonable for the two characters standing next to the rear end of the SUV before it started moving to be at risk of being hit by it as it spins, so I call for Reflex saves from them both.
Not according to my players.
To be fair, I may not have described the scene well enough. They may have had a poor understanding of position and where the vehicles were.
I have 11 screens open on my PC to manage this scene. I'm trying to update information and provide descriptive text in realtime to ensure that it goes as smoothly and quickly as possible, so that the players don't have to wait while I trawl through notes and information and stuff in books before typing things up.
The last thing I need at a time like that is a rules discussion. Heck, not really a rules discussion, but an objection to my interpretation of the scene.
If a 15 foot vehicle that you are standing within 5 feet of goes into a flat spin, you are at risk of being hit by it. That's simple geometry. I do not have time to discuss geometry while I'm trying to keep a fight moving smoothly, alt+tabbing between 11 different screens, clicking, adjusting, typing descriptions and so forth.
To answer the objections that were raised would have resulted in the scene grinding to a halt. We hadn't even finished the first round of combat, and already the scene was at risk of stopping.
Combat scenes in this game are slow. They take forever to resolve. I love the game, I'm enjoying the plot and the story that's coming out as the players get involved and regularly bend the plot over a barrel, but any amount of fighting is a pain in the ass to resolve. It's the most stressful thing I do on a regular basis, in fact. Work is a doddle, compared to the prospect of running a fight in my M&M game. Which doesn't stop me enjoying it. It's just a lot of stress, and a lot of work.
So... I logged out. I really couldn't handle it, and I didn't want to get involved in a discussion with six other people about why I was unable to handle it - the management of the game is meant to be invisible to the players. They have no need to know how much work I do to keep things running, because all I want is for them to enjoy the story.
We'll undoubtedly resume next week, hopefully with me in a better frame of mind.
I'm seriously considering some sort of mapping software, though. Not an online tabletop, though - just a shared map. That would really help, except for the fact that I prefer non-mapped RP combat, and M&M's combat system is designed to be non-mapped.
We'll see.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)